The conversation wound itself around in several variations on the same
theme, as conversations in the mess tent were wont to do, yet Father
Mulcahy fell silent, drinking from a small glass of powdered milk. He
watched through the mesh screen wall as the world outside grew dark.
He thought.
He thought about Philadelphia, he thought about whether it was daytime or nighttime there. He counted the hours backward in his mind, took a mental trip homeward only to find that he passed through the entirety of a day and into the darkness that just precedes dawn. The citizenry of his hometown would be in bed, all asleep at this hour, blanketed in the dark, deep calm he'd grown to know fondly in his short bouts of insomnia that still periodically came to him.
He thought of, of all things, Mr. and Mrs. Willard, he chuckled, ostensibly at something Hawkeye was saying, always a safe bet: but really picturing the husband's shaggy beard, the wife's little mole on her assiduously scowling face. It was as if he could see them sleeping there in the pitch black of pre-dawn. He almost felt guilty, looking in on their conjugal bed like that. They were a set of caricatures, husband and wife, his features round and soft, hers angular and harsh. Had he then known about Colonel Potter's painting habit, he might have thought of inviting the Missourian to the coast to paint a sitting of them after the war.
Colonel Potter would probably enjoy the challenge of making the two oddly disparate spouses match together enough to fit in a painting, and as for the Willards themselves... it would be the least he could do.
Mr. Willard, at least, had been one of his biggest supporters among the congregation while most of the others were still mourning the loss of their former priest, Father Danielson.
Mr. Willard had been the first to greet him with a cheerful smile, his funny beard twitching, the first not to head into long detailed discussions of Father Danielson's work and even longer eulogies of how he'll be missed. His wife had followed his lead. He'd never said thank you. He wasn't quite sure at the time what he was thankful for.
Their son Andrew was the first man for whom Father Mulcahy had carried out the last rites. The first that Mulcahy had ever put into the ground as an ordained Priest.
And, as he presided over the ceremonies, he felt like a stranger. Somebody there carrying out a job, given no more attention than the coffin-maker or the grounds-keeper.
Only Mr. Willard, of all the crowd the one with least reason to be expected to do so, looked up from his weeping wife and the gaping grave, and nodded some sort of acknowledgement.
He thought about sitting out in the sun outside his tent, here, in Korea, he thought about looking up to the mountainside and seeing the line of white creatures marching in formation. Soldiers of some foreign outfit?
No, Ho-Jon had explained, when asked, before he left for the States. A funeral party.
Mulcahy, fascinated, had stood up to watch.
He thought about all these things as the dusk became darker in hue and the grey dust through the green screen began to tint blue from the familiar combination of camp lights and moonlight.
He'd never given another funeral service since that time, having been blessed with a generally healthy flock and the quick arrival of a war.
The war? A blessing? He dismissed the thought. At least, not for him. Though since he'd gotten here, he'd often thought that perhaps the congregation was happier with whoever came to take his place. Perhaps they'd then had a chance to grieve, and were now ready to take a new spiritual leader to heart. Perhaps Mulchay's timing was simply off. And perhaps his leaving for the army was the best thing for everybody. That was certainly what he had told himself back then.
From Mrs. Willard, he'd received a fruit basket, assiduously picked out from a catalogue, and from Mr. Willard, a smile, and a twitch of his funny beard, and a wish of good luck.
"If you mean to your comrades in Korea," he'd said, "What you've meant to my wife and I."
The man's eyes had brimmed, he'd smiled more broadly, clapped the priest on the shoulder, leaving the rest of the statement unsaid.
Was it pride for the priest to have wanted to hear the end of it? It might have been, he now reflected, though now he didn't feel any further want. He knew what it signified.
His timing was wrong in Philadelphia. The people there were, as Hawkeye Pierce would have likely put it, "on the rebound," and were simply not ready to place their faith and trust into the hands of another man. With time and patience, perhaps two things he had a little bit less of than he ought to have had, a bond would have formed, as one had here.
As one had here. The words flowed naturally along in the Hunter's train of thoughts, but, once enunciated in the depths of his reverie, they hovered there, demanding investigation.
Yes, it all seemed natural enough. The way Henry Blake strolled into the mess tent a half hour or so after the darkness fell. The way the others there reacted to his arrival, the way Hawkeye scooted over to offer him a place to sit. There were words exchanged: the priest smiled meekly and looked on, not particularly listening.
Yes, everything seemed normal, natural for the moment. Granted, Klinger and Radar were in post-op, granted, Trapper was already likely at home 'refusing his first house call,' granted, again, that Majors Burns and Houlihan were... well, yes, that was normal, too. But seeing the familiar interaction between Hawkeye and Henry, despite B.J.'s looking on with a distaste that Mulcahy noticed even if the other two didn't, the hunter couldn't help but feel that everything was just as it should be, that he was just a simple army priest doing his best to keep a simple army surgical outfit from falling to pieces around the doctors who were trying, in turn, to keep their patients from falling to pieces.
Sidney soon came over to bid good evening to the newly arisen Brujah, and even Colonel Potter exchanged polite greetings with the man he'd replaced.
Father Mulcahy assumed he'd said something in the way of a greeting, perhaps something such as, "Good evening, Colonel Blake," or something so equally polite as to get a bit of a stare and a curious tip of the hat from the (rightfully so) slightly suspicious Brujah.
"Father," Henry smiled warily, his voice lilting as he nodded.
But the hunter simply smiled with that cautious kindness that seemed purely his. He knew what needed to be done. Seeing Henry there, Hawkeye sitting on his right, Sidney standing at his left, at his right the doctor who cares for the body, at his left the one who cares for the mind.
There was a third left to be tended to. Having been a Hunter, Father Mulcahy had nearly forgotten to be a priest.
Besides. Radar would soon writhe from the grasp of the devious Nurse Kelleye. Their charge from the dreaming, as he remembered, was to keep the two apart.
"Henry..." Father Mulcahy finally spoke up, the formalities dropping, but not his quietly demanding tone, "Do you have a moment?"
Henry quirked a brow and slid out from in front of the bench on which he'd been sitting, his eyes following Mulcahy as the priest stood and wandered towards the door. "Sure, Father," he frowned a bit and began to follow.
The vampire paused as the door closed behind the hunter, and as he prepared to follow, he thought better of it for a moment, turning back to the table to smirk over a half-serious comment, "If I'm not back in fifteen minutes, send the MPs."
~
He thought.
He thought about Philadelphia, he thought about whether it was daytime or nighttime there. He counted the hours backward in his mind, took a mental trip homeward only to find that he passed through the entirety of a day and into the darkness that just precedes dawn. The citizenry of his hometown would be in bed, all asleep at this hour, blanketed in the dark, deep calm he'd grown to know fondly in his short bouts of insomnia that still periodically came to him.
He thought of, of all things, Mr. and Mrs. Willard, he chuckled, ostensibly at something Hawkeye was saying, always a safe bet: but really picturing the husband's shaggy beard, the wife's little mole on her assiduously scowling face. It was as if he could see them sleeping there in the pitch black of pre-dawn. He almost felt guilty, looking in on their conjugal bed like that. They were a set of caricatures, husband and wife, his features round and soft, hers angular and harsh. Had he then known about Colonel Potter's painting habit, he might have thought of inviting the Missourian to the coast to paint a sitting of them after the war.
Colonel Potter would probably enjoy the challenge of making the two oddly disparate spouses match together enough to fit in a painting, and as for the Willards themselves... it would be the least he could do.
Mr. Willard, at least, had been one of his biggest supporters among the congregation while most of the others were still mourning the loss of their former priest, Father Danielson.
Mr. Willard had been the first to greet him with a cheerful smile, his funny beard twitching, the first not to head into long detailed discussions of Father Danielson's work and even longer eulogies of how he'll be missed. His wife had followed his lead. He'd never said thank you. He wasn't quite sure at the time what he was thankful for.
Their son Andrew was the first man for whom Father Mulcahy had carried out the last rites. The first that Mulcahy had ever put into the ground as an ordained Priest.
And, as he presided over the ceremonies, he felt like a stranger. Somebody there carrying out a job, given no more attention than the coffin-maker or the grounds-keeper.
Only Mr. Willard, of all the crowd the one with least reason to be expected to do so, looked up from his weeping wife and the gaping grave, and nodded some sort of acknowledgement.
He thought about sitting out in the sun outside his tent, here, in Korea, he thought about looking up to the mountainside and seeing the line of white creatures marching in formation. Soldiers of some foreign outfit?
No, Ho-Jon had explained, when asked, before he left for the States. A funeral party.
Mulcahy, fascinated, had stood up to watch.
He thought about all these things as the dusk became darker in hue and the grey dust through the green screen began to tint blue from the familiar combination of camp lights and moonlight.
He'd never given another funeral service since that time, having been blessed with a generally healthy flock and the quick arrival of a war.
The war? A blessing? He dismissed the thought. At least, not for him. Though since he'd gotten here, he'd often thought that perhaps the congregation was happier with whoever came to take his place. Perhaps they'd then had a chance to grieve, and were now ready to take a new spiritual leader to heart. Perhaps Mulchay's timing was simply off. And perhaps his leaving for the army was the best thing for everybody. That was certainly what he had told himself back then.
From Mrs. Willard, he'd received a fruit basket, assiduously picked out from a catalogue, and from Mr. Willard, a smile, and a twitch of his funny beard, and a wish of good luck.
"If you mean to your comrades in Korea," he'd said, "What you've meant to my wife and I."
The man's eyes had brimmed, he'd smiled more broadly, clapped the priest on the shoulder, leaving the rest of the statement unsaid.
Was it pride for the priest to have wanted to hear the end of it? It might have been, he now reflected, though now he didn't feel any further want. He knew what it signified.
His timing was wrong in Philadelphia. The people there were, as Hawkeye Pierce would have likely put it, "on the rebound," and were simply not ready to place their faith and trust into the hands of another man. With time and patience, perhaps two things he had a little bit less of than he ought to have had, a bond would have formed, as one had here.
As one had here. The words flowed naturally along in the Hunter's train of thoughts, but, once enunciated in the depths of his reverie, they hovered there, demanding investigation.
Yes, it all seemed natural enough. The way Henry Blake strolled into the mess tent a half hour or so after the darkness fell. The way the others there reacted to his arrival, the way Hawkeye scooted over to offer him a place to sit. There were words exchanged: the priest smiled meekly and looked on, not particularly listening.
Yes, everything seemed normal, natural for the moment. Granted, Klinger and Radar were in post-op, granted, Trapper was already likely at home 'refusing his first house call,' granted, again, that Majors Burns and Houlihan were... well, yes, that was normal, too. But seeing the familiar interaction between Hawkeye and Henry, despite B.J.'s looking on with a distaste that Mulcahy noticed even if the other two didn't, the hunter couldn't help but feel that everything was just as it should be, that he was just a simple army priest doing his best to keep a simple army surgical outfit from falling to pieces around the doctors who were trying, in turn, to keep their patients from falling to pieces.
Sidney soon came over to bid good evening to the newly arisen Brujah, and even Colonel Potter exchanged polite greetings with the man he'd replaced.
Father Mulcahy assumed he'd said something in the way of a greeting, perhaps something such as, "Good evening, Colonel Blake," or something so equally polite as to get a bit of a stare and a curious tip of the hat from the (rightfully so) slightly suspicious Brujah.
"Father," Henry smiled warily, his voice lilting as he nodded.
But the hunter simply smiled with that cautious kindness that seemed purely his. He knew what needed to be done. Seeing Henry there, Hawkeye sitting on his right, Sidney standing at his left, at his right the doctor who cares for the body, at his left the one who cares for the mind.
There was a third left to be tended to. Having been a Hunter, Father Mulcahy had nearly forgotten to be a priest.
Besides. Radar would soon writhe from the grasp of the devious Nurse Kelleye. Their charge from the dreaming, as he remembered, was to keep the two apart.
"Henry..." Father Mulcahy finally spoke up, the formalities dropping, but not his quietly demanding tone, "Do you have a moment?"
Henry quirked a brow and slid out from in front of the bench on which he'd been sitting, his eyes following Mulcahy as the priest stood and wandered towards the door. "Sure, Father," he frowned a bit and began to follow.
The vampire paused as the door closed behind the hunter, and as he prepared to follow, he thought better of it for a moment, turning back to the table to smirk over a half-serious comment, "If I'm not back in fifteen minutes, send the MPs."
~